Alvin Toffler

I appreciated this quote about schools from Alvin Toffler's 1995 book Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave as it succinctly summarises my previous post:

[schools]…still operate like factories. They subject the raw material (children) to standardised instruction and routine inspection.

Toffler goes on to remind us to question the intention of innovations:

An important question to ask of any proposed educational innovation is simply this: is it intended to make the factory run more efficiently, or is it designed, as it should be, to get rid of the factory model altogether and replace it with individualised, customised education?

e-Learning is such an innovation, although it offers both the tantalising promise of Toffler's relevant, learner-centered education and the all too common reality of simply increasing the accessibility of the assembly line.